Blood for Blood
by startraveller776
Summary: He missed his chance by a heartbeat—the difference between life and death. Now, the mantle of savior rests on Loki's shoulders. Will the mercurial God of Mayhem rise to the challenge of rescuing the nine realms from eternal darkness?


**Disclaimer:** No things owned but my imagination.

**WARNINGS:** Major character death and violence and less than happy endings. Also, Dark!Loki.

**A/N:** Written (quite belatedly) for rosweldrmr who wanted angst, tragedy, and mental instability.

I apologize for the disappearance of your original gift-giver for the Gathering Astrofrost Exchange, and I hope this will be an acceptable replacement!

This is a canon divergence AU for _Thor: The Dark World_. I'm not the first to tackle this particular alteration, but I wanted to play with a darker possibility.

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><p><strong>Blood for Blood<strong>

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><p>"No!"<p>

The exclamation rips from Loki in a rasping, hollow sound in the wasteland of Svartalfheim. Someone else screams as well, but he doesn't care. He missed his chance by a heartbeat, the infinitesimal intake of a single breath.

The difference between life and death.

He's dimly aware of a feral yell clawing over his tongue as he drives the blade through bone and sinew—through the dark elf demon who has destroyed _everything_. The horned beast turns, grasps at Loki but he deftly sidesteps the scabrous hands.

But not before leaving him a gift.

"Burn in Hel, monster!" Loki spits. The bomb whines to a terrible crescendo before it dismantles Kurse limb by limb.

It's not enough, though. There is not enough pain, anguish, _death_ in the cosmos to make restitution for what the creature and his master have taken from Loki.

_Satisfaction's not in my nature._

A lie which has now become truth.

He stares at the little mortal—what is her name again? oh yes, Jane—who kneels over his brother's crumpled form, mangled and tossed aside like a balled up bit of parchment. She sobs his name over and again as if it were an incantation to resurrect the dead.

Loki hates her for this.

How _dare_ she grieve for Thor. Does she think her handful of days with the fair-haired god of thunder equal to a millennium of fighting at his side, laughing into pints of mead, enduring his boasts and blustering, settling his tantrums? What right has she to weep—this human, this expendable_ thing _from Midgard?

She, too, ruined everything.

He grabs her by the waist, yanks her away from Thor's body. "There's nothing to be done," he hisses in her ear.

She does not come away quietly, but pommels against his chest, kicks at his shins, and he smiles. Because while her grief tastes like bile, the hatred and outrage glowing in her red-stained eyes is sweet. Familiar.

"This is what you wanted," she returns, acid lacing every word. "You tried to kill him so many times, and now he's dead. Are you happy?"

Is he? Within the deep wells of his wrath, Loki once pictured the life bleeding from his brother until his final expelled breath. Loki imagined relief. Peace. But as he glances at Thor's lifeless body, he feels nothing. No, _more_ than nothing. An emptiness so vast, so consuming, he would tear the nine realms apart to escape it.

"Bastard!"

Jane swings a fist toward him, and he catches it with ease. There are no manacles around his wrists, hindering his reflexes—no glowering Thor to keep him in check—and he shoves her to the ground, dagger at her throat before she can form a protest.

"Do you want to join my brother?" he asks. She's so tiny, so fragile, he could snap her in two with a simple wrench of his hands. Oh, but look how fiercely she clenches her jaw despite the fear siphoning all color from her face. Under different circumstances, he could almost admire her for it.

"I thought not," he says, straightening as he sheaths his dagger. He affords her one final glance before dismissing her. They are finished, and he doesn't care if she manages to find a way out of this desolate realm. He has other matters to attend to.

Malekith still lives.

"Where are you going?" she demands, scrambling after him. When he doesn't answer, she repeats the question, louder, fractured with anger and helplessness.

He says nothing as he stalks toward the airship—back to the fissure between worlds. Let her follow, if she wishes, all the way to her demise. Thor is gone, and with him, Loki's transient covenant to keep the Midgardian woman safe. Or so he tells himself. Another lie? He doesn't care to know.

He waits only long enough for her to heave herself over the side of the ship before jerking back the rudder to full speed. She stumbles to the deck, glares at him, but makes no complaint. Good. He has no patience for whatever insignificant grievances she might have. There is a storm swirling on the horizon, black and violent.

Not unlike the turbulent space behind his ribs.

Jane breaks the silence moments later, her voice barely audible over the wind coursing between them. "He's going to Earth. He's going to unleash the Æther there."

A glance is the only response Loki gives her. She is clever—for a mortal—but he already knows Malekith's designs. If the dark elves intend infect the universe with unyielding dark, then there is no better place to begin than the central realm. Jane's realm.

"I can help," she continues, rubbing at the tracks her tears had left on her dingy cheeks. "I have data and equipment back at my lab. I can help you find him and stop him."

How quaint. Loki smirks at her. "How can I refuse such a generous offer when your aid has already been so invaluable?" He delivers the words with an arid laugh. Because she is at the root of this catastrophe. By freeing the Æther, she insinuated herself into a conflict as ancient as the Tree of Life. She was the death of Thor.

The death of Frigga.

Will she be the death of him, as well? No. Loki will kill her first.

If she seeks absolution for her sins, she will find none in him. He is not the savior his brother was. He is the devil, and the devil doesn't grant redemption.

But he will use her. Until she is a withered husk of herself, if necessary. Whatever it takes to exact his vengeance against Malekith.

The storm is nearly on their heels, blowing blackened sand in frenzied spirals toward them. He banks the ship hard to port and accelerates toward the splintered mountain from whence they came. Jane grips the edge of the vessel, skin blanching around her knuckles, but again does not object. Her quiet resolve inspires from him another fleeting bout of detached respect. Perhaps she will be more serviceable than he anticipated.

As the mountain looms closer, he sends a thread of magic toward the crevices, searching for the right pathway. Each gate has its own feel. Scent. Taste. The world of the mortals is a cacophony of the clear dew of Alfheim, the singed air of Muspelheim, the dank wood of Nidavellir, the bitter frost of Jotunheim, and more. There is a tang from every realm woven into the aura of Midgard.

He's found it.

He gives Jane a grim smile as he aims the ship toward a slim crack in the rock face. "Hold on."

She nods with somber resolve, anchoring herself.

_I like her._

Stony walls scrap against the sides of the vessel, raining brilliant sparks in their wake. The air, his armor, his flesh—_everything_—pinches toward his navel. Tight. Suffocating him. And then explodes in a kaleidoscope of eye-piercing colors, blurring, dancing, flashing for a breath before abruptly receding.

They arrive in some sort of metropolis, crowded with glittering buildings. Shocked bystanders scatter away from the vessel, pointing and screaming. This panicked mayhem which had once suited his nature does nothing for Loki now. Only Malekith's blood will sate him.

"London," Jane says, voice tinged with surprise and relief. She turns to Loki, determination drawing a line in her full lips. "We're close to my lab."

He gestures for her to direct him, and she does, leading them down thoroughfares and alleyways until she points out a building worn with age like the antiquated structure where she had once sheltered Thor. Loki leaps from the ship as it slows to a stop, provoking more alarm from the mortals loitering nearby. His name passes through them in a terrified murmur, but he pays them no heed as he reaches up to help Jane out of the vessel.

They climb the narrow stairs to her place in silence. The steps creak and groan under each footfall. His skin crackles faintly; the Convergence is ripening. She had better know how to find his nemesis. Loki will _not_ lose this battle.

"Jane!" a feminine voice shouts when Jane opens the door. "You can't just leave like that! The whole world is going crazy! All the stuff you saw is—" The young woman cuts off when she lays eyes on Loki.

"Oh, my god!" she exclaims.

Behind her, two men rise from their seats, chairs toppling into walls. "Loki," one whispers with dread. Loki remembers him. Doctor Selvig. The mortal he used to build the gateway for the Chitauri. Clearly the man has not fared well since the scepter's possession of him—if his lack of trousers is an indication. Humans are such frail things.

"It's not what you think!" Jane says to placate her companions. "Thor is…" Words seem to fail her.

"Thor is dead," Loki finishes for her, impatient to get on with the search. Every breath he takes has become electrified with the impending Convergence. Can they not feel the urgency of it?

Their reactions, however, are of shock and horror over the loss of a loved one. (Of course, they weep for Thor. Will anyone mourn if Loki dies? Frigga might have.) He swallows back the rage which burns in his throat. How can they grieve for a man they hardly knew? _MY brother_, an irrational voice screams inside. _MINE. Not yours_.

"Not by my hand," he explains to rebuff the accusation written their faces. "I've come to stop Malekith." Destroy him. Obliterate his entire species as thoroughly as if they had never existed in the first place.

The man whom Loki does not recognize begins to sputter. "But the Avengers—"

"Were only capable because they had a _god_ fighting at their side." Loki splays a hand against his chest, smiling bitterly as he says, "I am the only god who can save you now."

He doesn't care whether these mortals—or even their world—survive the conflict, but he will say anything, tell any lie if it sways them to give him aid.

"I'm going to need everything you've got on this," Jane says to Selvig. The tremor in her voice is almost imperceptible. "All the work you've been doing on gravimetrical anomalies—everything."

Selvig glances at Loki, eyes wide with distress. "Jane, I... He'll kill us all."

Loki keeps the sneer from his lips—barely. "I assure you, Doctor Selvig, that I no longer have any desire to rule your piteous world," he says. "If you fear for your life, then give your work to Jane Foster and be on your way. I have no time for your mad delusions."

Oddly, Selvig is outraged by the offer of escape. "If you think I'm leaving Jane alone with you—"

Loki interrupts him with a dismissive wave. "Go or stay. It makes no difference to me." He advances on Selvig, staring down the old man until he cowers. "But know this, if you impede me in any way, I will make you pay with agony so great you will beg for death. Do we have an understanding?"

Selvig nods, muted by terror. Pathetic.

"Good," Loki replies. "Now give Jane what she needs."

Ultimately, it is Selvig who discovers where Malekith will be. The older man draws with red ink on map, citing historical sites as coordinates. The lines join together in a place called Greenwich. It's very close, Jane explains. South.

"Take me there," Loki demands.

**=0=0=0= =0=0=0= =0=0=0=**

The greens of the Old Royal Naval College are cleared long before Malekith's ship descends in its destructive glory. The presence of Loki, Earth's last great villain, is enough to invoke mass terror and fleeing. No doubt it won't be long before Nick Fury and his feeble band of heroes deign to intervene, but Loki will have finished with Malekith before then.

As his nemesis exits the great ship, Loki's hand flexes instinctively for a greater source of power—Gungnir or even the scepter forced upon him by Thanos. He only has the sorcery taught him by Frigga and a thousand years of battles at his brother's side.

And Jane's mortal magic. _Science_, she calls it.

"You needn't have come so far, Jötunn," Malekith says when his gaze lands on Loki. "Death would have come to you soon enough."

Loki smiles, though his jaw clenches at the moniker. _Jötunn_. "Waiting for death is so terribly dull," he says. "Better to meet it head on, wouldn't you agree?"

Malekith nods to his minions and they fan out behind him, most marching off to destinations unknown. "So be it." He flings an arm forward, and a hundred crimson shards singing of power and annihilation hurtle toward Loki.

Blood pounding, breath loud in his ears, Loki dives forward and conceals himself as he conjures illusions. Of dozens of Asgardian soldiers in gleaming armor. Of Thor and his friends. Of Odin mounted on mighty Sleipnir.

Of Frigga.

"Your trickery will not fool me, Jötunn," Malekith calls out. "I watched the woman die with my own eyes."

False Frigga speaks, and despite the artifice, Loki swallows back the yawning ache her voice incites. "And how do you know it is not _my_ witchcraft?" she says with a whisper of derision in her tone. "Do you think yourself powerful enough to kill the queen of Asgard, _creature_?"

Malekith yells in manic rage, lunges toward the illusion as Loki flings a dagger at him. The blade catches Malekith in the arm, and the dark elf whips his head in Loki's direction, teeth bared in a growl. He grasps the knife and pulls it out. Carmine mist swirls out of the wound—the Æther.

Can the power be _bled_ from him?

Before Loki can speculate further, Malekith rushes blindly at him. And then they are adrift, falling, falling, falling to a wilderness of obsidian and flame. The air scorches Loki's lungs, but he is on his feet, dagger in hand, slicing at his enemy. Malekith whirls, deflecting the blow and shoving Loki back with unnatural force. Loki stumbles, but holds his ground despite the searing thirst of molten lava lapping at his boots.

He strikes again, this time the blade lands true, the metal thrusting against the resistance of leather, of sinew and bone. A stream of red and ash seeps from the cut in the dark elf's shoulder, joining the languid flow from his arm in a spiraling whorl. Malekith drives his hands forward and Loki flies backward into a seething inferno.

But at the cusp of his fiery demise, the world flashes, changes, alters. He lands in the pillowed embrace of a spongy grassland. Again he rises. Racing toward Malekith with another dagger in hand, casting illusions of himself advancing from all angles. His nemesis spins, pitching serrated crystalline fragments at the laughing gods. Loki dives, slicing at him and—

_Flash_.

Together they smash into one of the transports from Midgard, the ore crumbling beneath their combined weight. Snarling in rage, Loki stabs Malekith, once, twice, before the other can throw up his arms in defense. A halo of power bursts from the dark elf, again tossing Loki back in a concussed retreat, and he slams into another vehicle—

_Flash_.

—which gives way to the dusky, glittering sands of Svartalfheim. Around him, broken, pitted remains of a decaying civilization rise out of the inky ground. His feet find precarious purchase in the sliding landscape as he runs toward the monster he intends to kill, and they come together in a clash of magic and steel.

_Flash_.

They're on Midgard again, breaking through crowds of screaming bystanders to engage in their endless battle.

_Flash_.

Vanaheim, where the ancient woodlands explode in a spray of splinters and bark at their arrival.

_Flash_.

Weightlessness takes Loki as he appears in the azure skies of Midgard before the eternal call of gravity yanks him toward the earth. He sends his weapon flying at Malekith as they strike a towering building, cracking the thick glass in broken lines. As they slip over the edge, the dark elf answers with his own Æther-made blade—one which Loki is unable to fend off.

_Flash_.

The icy flush of sudden cold quells the sting of the gaping lance dangerously close to his thrumming heart. He is rejuvenated enough by the frost and perpetual winter of his birthplace that he doesn't falter as he turns once more to face his rival. But Malekith is upon him too quickly, pushing another apical fragment of the infinity stone into him, piercing at his most vital organ as they topple to the ground. Loki's mouth opens in an unmade cry of fury and despair.

No. _No_. He can't have _lost_ in the final moment.

"And so shall you die as you were born, Jötunn." Malekith stands over him, severe features shadowed in the twilight. "From bleakness you came and to bleakness you return." He is gone.

Loki makes a futile grab at the weeping wound as darkness colors the edges of his vision, but the shard slips from his fingertips wet with blood, pulls itself deeper into his chest. Loki's back arches at the agony screaming through his body until his throat is raw.

And then a chill licks at his extremities, soothing the pain in a slow tide from his arms and legs to his torso. This is defeat—_death_—and it is strangely serene. Loki wonders if Frigga experienced this when she reached the end. Did Thor?

Will Loki see them again? Will he find them among the billions of others wiped from the realms because of his failure?

The moment arrives, but death looks upon him and frowns. Dissatisfied and unwilling to grant him that promised peace.

Another voice calls to him, beseeches him to rise and return to Midgard, to take what belongs to him. Vengeance? Yes, _vengeance_. And more. He rolls over, winces as agony rattles through his body again—though somehow _less_ now. He plants his hands on the frozen rock and stops at the sight of the raised patterns sculpted in his now cerulean flesh. Panic shrieks through his mind in a frenetic echo when he cannot will his skin back to the wan pallor he's always known.

The voice breaks through his horror, reminds him of his cause. Return, return, return. Find Malekith. Take what is his. Loki pushes himself up, stumbles in a desperate circle to find a passageway. _There_. He sees the warped aura of one of Jane's manufactured waygates, and he dashes toward it, his pain attenuating with every footfall.

_Flash._

He stands once more on the grounds at the center of this conflict. Ahead, the Æther roars in a funnel spiraling up to the other exposed realms.

_Take what is yours_. The insidious whisper from within begins to chant. _Take what is yours_.

"Loki! Oh, my god! You're—" Jane is at his side, panting, eyes rounded with fear—with repulsion as she takes in his true form. No, _not_ his true form—_never_—but he will rectify that after he's exacted his revenge.

He steps forward, toward the tornado, and Jane grabs the leather bracer on his arm. "We're too late!" she exclaims over a centrifugal gale. "We can't get in there."

He looks down at her, the tiny, fragile thing full of so much fire—_take what is yours_—and circles her wrist, careful to keep his blighted fingers from touching more than her coat as he pries her hand from him. "Do not underestimate a god, Jane Foster," he warns. Death has already spat him out. He will prevail.

He advances toward the tempest of smoke and crystal, of infinite energy. _Take what is yours_. He pushes through the barrier, ignoring the flecks of debris that bite fruitlessly against his now coriaceous skin. One foot before the other. Again. Again. Again. The journey to the heart of the whirlwind is an eternity, and he grits his teeth, pressing on, ever forward until finally—_finally_—he breaches the radius.

His prey stands at the center of the maelstrom, head and arms raised as if caught in the rapture of an exultant prayer. Loki grins in savage anticipation as he makes his approach. _Take what is yours_.

Oh, how he _will_.

Malekith's gaze drops to Loki, and his expression betrays no surprise at seeing his resurrected enemy. "You cannot destroy the Æther," he announces in a booming voice.

Loki's arm crackles, his fingers compressing as ice crystalizes over them to form a blade. "Who says I want to?" He closes the gap between them, smile growing wider as he understands. The whisper intoning in his thoughts—it's not his, but originates from remnants of the infinity stone Malekith so foolishly left inside of Loki.

"Can you feel it? Can you feel how it no longer wants you and your paltry ambitions?" he asks as he comes nearly chest to chest with Malekith. "It has tasted mine and likes the flavor of them better."

Before Malekith can argue, Loki jabs his hand into the dark elf's armor, cleaving through it, cutting into elastic muscle and brittle bone. "You merely use it to throw Yggdrasil into everlasting night, only to toss it aside like a battered tool afterward," he growls, ice receding from his hand so he can grip Malekith's beating heart. "But I am not so easily satisfied, and it yearns for my tireless aspirations for ever more."

_Take what is yours_. His fingertips squeeze around the fluttering tissue, and he huffs a soft, cruel laugh when Malekith gasps. "You are unworthy of the power you would wield." He rips the organ from Malekith, vindication sparking through him as he watches his enemy collapse in a pathetic tangle of limbs.

Loki drops the heart, wipes his palm on his thigh and waits. One beat. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six—

The Æther plunges into him at once, filling him past bursting, and—by the Fates, _stop, stop, stop, stop!_ But it comes and comes. A never-ending onslaught of force sliding into his veins, twisting over his bones, flooding his sinews, infecting his mind. He sucks in a violent breath, and the Æther slips down his throat, coating his lungs.

Loki's knees crack against the earth as he falls prostrate. It's too much.

_Take what is yours_.

Too much.

_Take what is yours_.

He can't. Not any more.

_Take_.

_Take_.

No—

_TAKE._

The heavens open to him. Worlds upon worlds. Revelations of the future, of the past, of the now. Thousands upon thousands of civilizations rising and falling. Knowledge as vast as that which the Tesseract hinted to him once, but with a different taint, deeper, reaching beyond the edge of the universe. The Æther—no, Loki—no, _both_ hunger to possess _all_ of it.

He rises from the ground and stares at his skin as it takes on the pale hue that belongs to him. Because he is not Jötunn. Neither is he Æsir, but Loki alone.

No, not alone. Loki, born of all realms and none of them. Loki, who bears power beyond imagining.

"Loki!" a voice cries out. "You did it!"

He turns as a small figure runs toward him. Jane Foster. The Æther inside of him lurches at the name, and its memories of her curl and meld into Loki's own brief recollections. He remembers the inexplicable well of strength within her, not only in the gritty set of her jaw as they escaped Svartalfheim, but he recalls being _inside_ of her, basking in the cold steel of her dedication which kept her alive during his occupation.

_I like her._

_Take what is yours._

She comes to an abrupt halt before him, triumphant expression cracking into terror when he turns his charcoaled gaze more fully on her and smiles. She knows.

"No," she murmurs, backing away from him.

"I have saved your meager realm," he says, following her retreat. His baritone is more weighted, harmonized with the quiet song of the Æther. "Is this not what you desired?"

She shakes her head. "Not like this."

He laughs even as the power within him claws at his skin in a reckless attempt to reach her. "Don't be afraid. I mean no harm to you or your companions." He nods toward the motley crew who have made her their leader.

"And Asgard?" she counters. There it is. That audacity shining through her fear. He wants it.

"Asgard," he answers, his smile pulling tight in the corners, "must have its reckoning. But never fear, your world remain safe for—oh, let's say a century. Will that do? This is my gift to your friends for their aid. And for you…" He caresses her cheek, and she flinches at the intimate touch. A hundred images flash through his mind, of a future where she is at his side, ruling, conquering, lying beneath him in exquisite beauty as they commune with one another—with the Æther that wants them both.

He tips her chin up and kisses her. The power within him buzzes at the contact, begs to savor her, and when she resists, he hooks his thumb in her mouth, breathing into her a measure of that which has seized him.

She chokes, shoves him back, and scrubs at her lips in vain. "What have you done?" she demands with shrill dread.

"You have your reward, Lady Jane—as do I." He steps back with amusement. "I do hope you won't be long in joining me. I've never been very patient when I want something."

He leaves her slack-jawed, staring after him as he walks toward the airship that conveyed them both to this unexpected but welcome conclusion. The infinity gem will work in her, erode her until she's reborn as he was. She will come for him, compelled by the siren call of the Æther to its own. And then—

They will take what is theirs.

_Everything_.

**~FIN~**

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><p><strong>AN:** (Yes, this is the end. It's a oneshot.) Thank you for reading this dark little tale. If you have a moment, I'd love to know your thoughts! :)


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